


Feeling like pizza

by tothelight



Category: Power Rangers S.P.D.
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothelight/pseuds/tothelight
Summary: Jack's not dead. The others have some commentary on that fact.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: Toku Poly Ficathon 2020





	Feeling like pizza

**Author's Note:**

  * For [authenticaussie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/authenticaussie/gifts).



“Jack, put down the tape,” Syd warned him. 

“Aw c’mon, Syd,” Jack said easily, waving it in the air. Really. They’d done this whole ‘clean up and take care of each other in the rec room after a monster fight’ a million times now. Yeah, okay, fine, apart from the cringeworthy image in his head of the Deltaforce Megazord ass-deep in a minimart roof. That was on him, he knew, and Cruger was gonna have something to say to him later after Cruger finished apologizing to the owner. “I know how to use it. I can help! Whaddaya think I’m gonna do, wax Sky’s eyebrows off or something?” 

“Don’t. You. _Dare._ ”

Sky was on his feet immediately, in spite of the bandage wrapped around his thigh. He grimace-glowered at Jack, while Z made fussy motions at Sky. Z didn’t look so great either. Her eyes were kind of glazed over, and her hair was messy. There were bits of dust in it. Hey, that was dust in Sky’s, too, right? Why didn’t he remember seeing that happen, whatever it was? 

Bridge slung an arm around Sky, and he almost made it look like affection instead of trying to hold up Sky. Jack was impressed. “No one’s going to seriously threaten your eyebrows. How could you make proper angry faces, or quizzical faces, if you lost them? The world can’t live without your angry face.” 

As usual, the B Squad was effortlessly good at carrying on multiple conversations at once. 

“You should put it down because I’m trying to help you, Jack, and I need it to attach your bandages to something that isn’t your underwear!” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine, if you won’t let me help then you guys help each other,” he told Syd, breezing right on past the words ‘bandages’ and ‘underwear’. At least he knew he was wearing the funky boxers today. Not the Spongebob ones that Z got him for his birthday. “I’ll order something for lunch, okay? I feel like pizza. Anyone else feel like pizza?” 

“I felt like pizza two nights ago, then I couldn’t get the shredded cheese out of my hair,” Bridge contributed, but Jack couldn’t focus on the last few words because Syd –

Syd –

Syd – dug a finger into his hip and his entire _brain_

just whited out. 

“What the hell was that?” he gasped as he came back. He could feel his entire face sweating. She had an arm around him, and she eased him back down to the squishiness of the rec room seat. 

No one was lethal like Sydney Drew when she was pissed off. He was impressed, through the shuddering pain that he’d been managing to ignore up till now, when she’d multiplied it by a thousand or so. 

“You got hurt when you got THROWN OFF A BUILDING without your suit,” Syd snapped, hair bobbing around her face. The others nodded emphatically. “Remember? You hit the pavement so hard we thought you were dead!” 

“But I’m not.” 

“Yeah, I know, brother.” 

Z left Sky to Bridge’s ministrations for the moment. She was still pale, and now that he looked properly, he could see the graze on her temple from where she’d hit her head on something. He didn’t like it when she hit her head. She knelt in front of him, sitting back on her heels, and then she leaned forward to cup his face. 

She kissed his cheek gently. 

“I’m not dead,” he repeated, trying to ignore the blush that was warming his face. 

He knew they all cared about him, and he enjoyed that fact a lot. They were friends. Good friends. He knew that Syd, Bridge, and Sky were a thing, and he was pretty sure that Z was part of it now, too, and that was fine! They were allowed to be in love with each other. He loved them all as well, even if he wasn’t IN love. Even if they didn’t love him in quite the same way. 

He flashed back suddenly to another time, when he’d woken up to the sound of Syd having lost her damn mind. 

_“Bleeble blarble snorp,” she said efficiently._

_Jack blinked, and looked around him, as he eased his way to his feet. They were in a parking lot downtown. A couple cars had been destroyed. Whoops. That was probably his fault. He was leader, right? _Everything_ was his fault. _

_And the missing mind issue – had Syd checked down the back of the couch, he wondered – was affecting Sky, too. He looked up from where he was cuffing that person they’d been after, and he called to Bridge, except what he said to Bridge was, “Greegle! Fworp oMONgle, blat!”_

_“Don’t worry about it,” Jack said, trying to be as comforting as he could. He was holding onto a tree, which was comforting _him_. Good teamwork. Good tree. (Or was it good Z? Trees didn’t usually wrap an arm around him, he thought. Probably.) “It’s all okay, guys. Good work. We can fix up your brains once we get back to hot dogs.”_

_Who was it they’d captured? He should know…_

_Then his last couple words caught up with him, and he wondered what he’d meant to say, and then his stomach rumbled as everything went red-_

_He woke up this time in the wayyy too soft bed in sick bay, with Kat giving him one of those ‘I know more than you do’ smiles. To be fair, Kat always knew more than he did, so he never took that personally. She softened into a more genuine smile as his eyes met hers._

_“You don’t technically have a concussion, but the arm will hurt for a while, and come back and see me if you start seeing double. Be careful.”_

_“Never,” he assured her, pleased that at least she was speaking English, unlike the rest of them._

_“You’re an asshole,” Sky said as he came into the room. He was smiling._

_“How much did you hear?”_

_“Nothing. Just making a general comment.”_

_Jack laughed, and headed on out with Sky, wondering idly why they were babysitting him._

When he’d gotten back to the rec room that time, they’d all clustered around him. Kind of like they were now. He’d thought about it, then. What it might be like to be part of it all with them. What it might be like to love, and be loved by them. 

Sky was closer again now, and Bridge, too. 

Bridge met Syd’s eyes. She nodded. 

“Ah, Jack?” Bridge said softly. 

“Yeah?” 

“You’re not dead.”

“…thanks, buddy.” 

Sky sighed, and flopped down next to Jack, grabbing his own thigh with a wince. “What my colleague is trying to say is that you’re not dead, and we all, uh, talked about how stupid you are, and how you probably should’ve figured this out before now, but it’s not really fair of us to expect that when there are four of us and one of you, and how-“

“How we don’t want to lose you,” Z said.

Syd nodded. “Without ever doing this.”

She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, and when she leaned back again Jack realized his eyes were wet. 

“Oh,” he said inadequately.

“Doesn’t mean you can go and get yourself killed now,” Z told him, her voice fierce. 

It was difficult to hear her, though, not with Bridge’s smile bright like diamonds in front of him, not with Z’s eyes so deep, not with Syd’s hair looking so good even rumpled, not with Sky right there.

It’d been a pattern, hadn’t it. And he hadn’t realized………………… to be fair on himself, a pattern of two wasn’t much of a pattern, but then again there were other times. Why hadn’t he just asked? Why had he figured he was just fine and didn’t want to intrude? He was Jack freaking Landors. He intruded everywhere, and everywhere was happy for it! 

Sky’s face was close, and he was wearing that expression that said he was pissed, but it was purely to cover softer feelings underneath. “Z’s right. Don’t go get yourself killed. We’re the only ones who get to kill you.”

Jack leaned to his side and buried his face in Sky’s shoulder. “Thanks, Sky.”


End file.
